One of the major points to grow out of the four papers presented in this issue is how to think of education in relation to the various challenges facing the biosphere, facing the future of human and other than human life forms, and facing the sheer difficulties of planning what to do about them. The differences in the role of education, of course, are reflected in the various terminologies used in these papers, from Environmental Education (EE) to Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Each one embodies its own complex story, its own partialities, its own blindspots and possibilities. Each of the papers raises questions about the limits of these perspectives. There is a palpable frustration with the theoretical arguments that do not take sufficiently teacher's practices into account (Louise Sund's paper; see EJ1108100), with the anthropocentrism that infects much writing on EE and ESD (Helen Kopnina and Brett Cherniak's contribution; see EJ1108093), with the mixed discursive orientations that inform policy on internationalisation and sustainability (Karen Pashby and Vanessa Andreotti's work; see EJ1108094) and with the lack of facing the paradox and controversy in which ESE is embedded (Katrien Van Poeck, Gert Goeminne and Joke Vandenabeele's paper; see EJ1108089). In this response, Sharon Todd investigates the relationship to education that is manifest in these papers to explore the kinds of moves the papers make in education's name, and where she thinks a robust theory of education that makes context, change and an unknowable future part and parcel of its practices is needed.